For now, S&P, the private American agency that grades the sustainability of various countries, confirms and does not reduce Italy's BBB rating, as feared and as the Moody's agency had done in recent days, but cuts the outlook, which becomes negative, and which could herald a future rating cut.
This is the long-awaited verdict from Italy for the immediate effect that the rating can have on its government bonds and on the sustainability of its public debt. S&P therefore differs from Moody's judgment which had placed Italian government bonds just one step above junk bonds. S&P, on the other hand, places Italian government bonds two notches above non-investment grade.
A sigh of relief therefore for government bonds and for the Italian public debt even if the future remains full of clouds, especially since the Government does not seem willing to accept the recommendations of the European Commission and does not want to take into consideration - at least for now – the idea of correcting the budget maneuver by reducing its impact on the public deficit and debt.
In fact, the outlook attributed to Italy by S&P depends precisely – says the American agency – on the absence of structural reforms in the Government's action, on the increase in debt and on the risk that the partial overcoming of the Fornero law will blow up the balance of the pension system.
Faced with the impasse in which the government finds itself, the deputy prime minister of Grillino Luigi Di Maio has adventurously aggravated the situation in the eyes of Europe and the market with an unprecedented attack on the president of the ECB, Mario Draghi - the man who saved the 'euro – accusing him of poisoning the climate for having argued that the case of Italy creates uncertainty in Europe like Brexit. It was not difficult for the president of the ECB to reply by reminding Di Maio that the central bank's task is to be independent of governments and states and not to help those who put themselves in difficulty with erratic economic policies.
Di Maio pretends to forget the value of the ECB's independence but his clumsy attempt to always find an enemy and to shift the responsibility for his own political failures and those of the Government he supports onto others can do great harm to Italy, whose international credibility and on the markets crumbles more and more every day.
